Please feel free to ask the “What is the meaning of life” question after you read the answer to your real question (which is a new question, so I will answer it right now!)
A: One thing I know for sure is that humanity is spreading out like a disease – but that’s something entirely different that I imagine I will have a chance to talk about eventually. The gist of your question is really this: The world has gone through some interesting crises lately, and these crises seem to be coming at an increasingly rapid rate. Has this made people change their behaviour for the better or not? Are we still a greedy species or are new (smaller) communities forming; indicating a loss in faith in regards to government and big business, and more dependence upon personal relationships?
At least, I think that’s what you’re asking. So that’s the question I’m going to answer.
Let’s start by making this concrete. Examples are good.
- Here, in British Columbia, the provincial government decided to hold an election a year or so early – May 2009 instead of 2010. Why would they do that? Well, we spent a few extra billion dollars on the 2010 Olympics, which had the effect of hiding the economic crisis from most people here (everyone was employed building Olympic things and fixing the roads). That’s bad enough, since one of their platform points had previously been to have fixed election dates. So in this new election, they make big noise about NOT bringing in HST (HST is PST (provincial sales tax) plus GST (federal goods and services tax)). PST is 7%, GST is 5% and HST was proposed to be 12% So what, you say? 7 + 5 = 12 so no change, right? Wrong. HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) will be applied to all kinds of things that did not apply to PST previously. It’s a huge tax grab that they are now planning on implementing in the spring/summer of 2010. In other words: they lied.
- Another British Columbia example from the same election. Kash Heed wins a seat in a riding by 748 votes. He goes on to become cabinet minister in charge of law and order. So how did Kash win? A few days before the election, his team sent out flyers claiming the opposition wanted to legalize heroin and cocaine, would legalize prostitution, would implement a “death tax” (where the government takes a percentage of what you own when you die, before it is left to relatives), and would force senior citizens to live in slums. It spooked enough people for him to win, as there was no time for the truth to come out (note: Kash Heed resigned a few days ago in early April 2009).
- An American example: claims by anti-public-healthcare groups in the USA that if the USA implemented public health care then there would be “death squads” trying to kill off old people early. Perhaps they got this idea from the BC election described in the previous point!
- Another example: the myth that we’re fighting a war in the Middle East and that it has nothing to do with oil.
- Another example: we’ll bail out the banks, because they’ve learned their lesson and will quit being greedy. This will help the common people.
- Okay, one more: the former governor of Illinois, Blagojevich. Heck, even Tiger Woods and Jesse James. Apparently anyone in a position of power or with money is a Lying Bastard™.
I could go on, but you already know all this: we’re being lied to on a continual and consistent basis by the people in power.
And then there’s the Tea Party – supposed rebels, naming themselves after a seminal event in American History, the Boston Tea Party. People generally believe that the Boston Tea Party incident happened because the British decided to raise taxes on tea. Actually, what happened was that the British had set taxes earlier and consequently a flourishing smuggling industry began (bringing in cheaper Dutch tea sans tax). The British decided to give a rebate to the East India Company, which allowed the East India Company to bring in the British tea and sell it (even with the tax still there) at a price that was lower than the smuggled Dutch tea! The smugglers didn’t like this, so they caused a bit of a kerfuffle and threw the British tea overboard. To quote Wikipedia on the subject:
The protest movement that culminated with the Boston Tea Party was not a dispute about high taxes. The price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act of 1773. … Colonial merchants, some of them smugglers, played a significant role in the protests. Because the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, it threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business.
Heck, if the Tea Party was really being true to their roots I’d have to conclude they probably have drug smugglers actively working behind the scenes. They’d want to fight the existing government, which is making their lives difficult. To be fair, that’s probably not true – the Tea Party is probably just people who don’t read much history but who can see the the obvious advantages the people in power enjoy. And they want said power and privileges for themselves. Politics corrupts!
Ah, the advantages the people with power enjoy (and money is power; Wall Street is always taken care of)… it made me want to compose a Wall Street Love Song (so off on a tangent I go…):
Wall Street Love Song Intro and Chorus Heaven (heaven) heaven (heaven baby) Have I ever told you? Have I ever told you how I feel? Baby, let me tell you one more time… - Verses Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like a banker (nice bottom line girl) Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like a banker in the Fort Knox vault, hope they throw the key ’cause I never wanna leave ya – keep me here - Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like a CEO (inflate my options) Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like a CEO no exit strategy don’t really need one lovely golden handcuffs – keep me here. - Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like a financier (no hidden assets) Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like a financier like those bubbles, up and down and all around the rollercoaster ride – it keeps me here - Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like the Fed Reserve (you raise my interest rate) Oh, yeah, (babe), baby I love you like the fed reserve I could fill your deficit, with a large deposit the taste of my inflation — keeps you hereAnyway, back to answering your question: Generally, I’d say that human greed is still here (well, here and in Mexico! Can you say “drug wars”?). The last year or so has shown this is true because the behaviour of the money people has not changed one iota. But an increasingly large number of people are deciding that since they can’t play that game, it’s time for them to play a different game. I like to think that more people are realizing that chasing after money and material possessions is not what life should be about. This growing group is, I think, dropping out of the consumption contest that’s been going on since the end of World War II. And as they/we give up on consumption for consumption’s sake — and start going after less “stuff” but of better quality, it is scaring those in power (who can we sell our crap to, they ask).
An awakening has begun, I think, but it is still nascent.
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